Category Archives: Football

Best Super Bowl Halftimes

Fandom, Football, Media

From a socio-cultural perspective, the scores of these two Super Bowls matter little.

Except I suppose to the fans in Indy, Chicago, Washington and Buffalo.

In the 2007 game, Peyton’s Colts bested the Bears, 29-17.

In the ’92 game, it was Redskins 37, Bills 24.

The Colts were up 16-14 at halftime in that edition in seriously rainy Miami.

The Skins led 17-0.

But oh my, those two years it was really about what happened while the teams were back in their locker rooms regrouping.

 * * * * *

Best is subjective.

As is Most Favorite.

Most important, or Axis Shifting, not so much.

There’s a clear choice here. Continue reading Best Super Bowl Halftimes →

Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Pigskin Postscript

Football, Gaming,

Angelo Pizzo, you’re on the clock.

And, while we’re waiting, my final tally.

Got the last three of the CFP correct, pushing my hugely winning total for the entire postseason to 17-9. Following a winning percentage of 66% for the regular season

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Of course, I had Indiana winning it all, I’ve been slobbering all over them since the middle of last season.

Yes, the rumors are true. In the corner of my TV room, there’s an homage to You Know Whom, featuring a Curt Cignetti bobblehead.

The ever burning incense is “l’essence du vestiaire du Hoosier.”

So, yeah, I rode this out of nowhere tale to its not really inevitable conclusion.

What a dang ride. Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Pigskin Postscript →

Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Pigskin Prognostication: Championship

Football, Gaming, , ,

Yes, this screed shall finish with my national title prediction.

But first, the long and winding road to get there. Known in the biz as a tease.

Or filler.

You ever been to an Indiana HS baskeball game?

If not, do yourself a favor and put it on your bucket list. Near the top.

I have. A couple are memorable.

Years ago, a New Albany tilt at Scottsburg. It was a time warp. Back to the days of Miracle Milan and Bobby Plump.

Ten cent popcorn. Fifty cent hot dogs. Twenty five cent Cokes. (Admittedly this was like 25 years ago, but still.)

A 70something guy leading a halftime cheer as he’d done at every Scotties home game since he was a student there. I later learned that he’d also been principal of the school.

Biased refs who whistled the Bulldogs for a foul every time they dared look at a Scottsburg player. Despite having a bunch of guys foul out, NA still won in OT.

The experience was just too quaint.

Been to a Jeffersonville/ New Albany game.

The paradigm of Hoosier Hysteria. Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Pigskin Prognostication: Championship →

Seedy K’s Postseason Pigskin Punditry & Prognostications: Portal &, Picks

Football,

Like the whole fraternity house full of signal callers who’ve matriculated through the revolving door of Jeff Brohm’s QB Room at the Schnell Complex then left, two more have bid the Cardinals their fond(?) adieu.

Deuce Adams and Brady Allen have gone veni vidi splitski.

Sayonara, ye former future Johnny U wannabes.

As for who’s got next, seems that Coach B searched through the discount bins at Bargain Supply. Those who might have had former Buckeye Lincoln Kienholz as the next Cardinal TP QB, cash your ticket.

With a few loyalists hangin’ around — thank you Clev Lubin and apparently Isaac Brown — Louisville’s roster is undergoing an almost total makeover.

To the consternation of the fan base.

But, ya know what kids, hate it as we might and do, it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere.

Several sources advise that in the first weekend of the TP, there are 4500 or so DI pigskinners who see greener grass somewhere other than where they are currently enrolled for their higher education.

Love that class at Somewhere Else A&M — English 359: Keats’ Hip Hop Influence.

And you thought a lot of space travelers were morphing intergalactically through the Iconian Gateway.

Pshaw. Beam ’em up, Scotty.

Money Talks, Most Everybody Walks. Continue reading Seedy K’s Postseason Pigskin Punditry & Prognostications: Portal &, Picks →

Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Punditry & Prognostications: CFP Quarter Finals

Football, Gaming

The CAS is growing faster than July kudzu in Yoknapatawpha County.

Talking about the Cignetti Adoration Society.

It’s not just round here.

Checking in with my NYC pal Courthouse the other night to preplan for our annual sojourn to New Orleans for JazzFest, he told me to be sure to root for Indiana. His son, a master pianist, studied there. Thus his fandom.

“Dude,” I admonished, “your knowledge of geography west of the Hudson remains sketchy. As I’ve advised, Bloomington’s just an hour from Louisville. Lots of kids from here go to IU. Lots of folks jumping on the IU bandwagon.

“Plus I’ve got a serious fanboy crush on Curt Cignetti.”

Then there’s the commenter from somewhere at one of the too many football screeds I have read. He mentioned as how they need to make a rags to riches movie about Indiana’s improbable, incomprehensible leap to the top of the college football universe.

That when it’s made, he says, they need to figure out a way for Gene Hackman to play Cignetti. I’m so sure AI can figure it out.

There could be a product placement scene when Elijah Saratt takes his wideout cronies, Charlie Becker and Omar Cooper Jr., to a Waffle House after a big W.

From “Hoosiers” to “Hoosiers 2: Picket Fence Begats Hook and Ladder.” Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Punditry & Prognostications: CFP Quarter Finals →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostication: Assorted Bowls 3

Football, Gaming

Never was able to get into “Mad Men” when it started streaming. Seemed kind of forced, artificial almost.

But I’m giving it another shot. Have watched first episode. Will advise.

It does have me thinking in the context of bowl season about marketing and advertising and PR.

And how the future of non-CFP bowls will depend on whether others can replicate what the brilliant folks behind the Pop Tarts Bowl* have done.

*Which about ten sponsors ago started out as the Blockbuster Bowl. Cue the South Park memory of when Randy bought the video store.

Dousing the winning coach with a humongous glop of mayo . . . meh . . . a one trick pony, an image that only needs be seen once.

Winning team eating a big bowl of baked beans? A double dipping nightmare even if it’s in a warm clime. Snoop “He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere” Dogg catching a touchback kickoff in the endzone? Moderately amusing.

But watching the victorious BYU Cougars decide which pastry mascots get slotted in the world’s biggest toaster thus turning them into edible Pop Tarts, with the portly coach stuffing a whole down the gullet in a single gulp,

then explaining/ advising he has a few more pounds to gain before his New Year’s resolution?

Priceless.

It works. Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostication: Assorted Bowls 3 →

Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Punditry & Prognostications: Assorted Bowls 2

Football, Gaming

Desperate times mean desperate measures.

That’s how the admonition/ homily/ observation has evolved through the eons. Credited to Hippocrates, speaking of how to treat rare illnesses in the days before Theodoric of Yorkick discovered bloodletting.

Though some cite Erasmus, another ancient as the first proclaimer.

Then there’s Willie the Shakes in “The Tempest.”

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

Such invocations apply to the fact that my performance so far in postseason picks have been as odoriferous as the Bean Bowl in Boca.

Thus I have fired my entire support staff and hired new ones, strangers I hardly know.

But it is far from why it is the lede, even with my mediocre 5-4 record so far, 2-2 in CFP.

It is to herald a gift from the ever beneficent Greek deity Bronconaguskius that shall keep on giving next football season. Or at least a portion of it. Over/ unders have been set.

Beleaguered Bill Belichick has hired Bobby Petrino as his new OC at North Carolina.

Yes, go ahead, exclaim it: WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go open your windows on this unseasonably warm day and bellow, “I’m pleased as punch, and I’ll take all of it I can get.”

Tis a motorspycho dream come true.

Ride like the wind, dudes. But be wary Billy and Bobby, there’s a violent windy storm out there.

Will Jessica Dorrell and Jordon Hudson become besties?

Stay tuned.

Just another twist and turn in Fansville. Has there ever been a gridiron postseason as wild and curious as this one?

Correct answer: Not even close.

My new support staff advises analytics have been adjusted, my hard drive has been defragmented, the data quadruple checked and the following are sure winners in the next few days: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Postseason Punditry & Prognostications: Assorted Bowls 2 →

U of L CardFile: Toledo

Football

If ever there was an appropriate ending to a seriously disappointing season, and to a meaningless bowl game that was laughably inept for a half then a comedy caravan of absurdly disjointed fauxball in the second, the 2025 Bush’s Boca Raton Bowl of Beans had one.

If ever there was a football game that should have been played on Festivus, this was it. And it was.

Keegan Michael Key, you are funny man, but dude, I sure hope the money was good because your rep took a hit trying to make this affair a thing of any consequence.

Louisville 27, Toledo 22.

In a nail-biter W over an undisciplined* Rocket team that committed fourteen penalties for triple digit penalty yards, that was without major coaches, playing a first time QB, and a first time hit or miss kicker.

*How indisciplined was Toledo? Not once but twice they were penalized for having two players wearing the same number in the game at the same time.

The game ground down after U of L took what should have been an insurmountable lead.

Among the highlights. A blocked U of L extra point that went for Dos the other way. U of L’s best player getting kicked out for targeting. An interim coach wasting his timeouts. A 53 yard What Can Brown Do For You? TD that turned out to be the winner. A Toledo penalty for swiping the ball before Louisville could snap it.

A sideline brawl. Continue reading U of L CardFile: Toledo →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Assorted Early Bowls

Football, Gaming,

Bienvenue to the folderol bowls.

For years I considered the “achievement” of bowl eligibility absurd. A bar to leap of the lowest order. Testament to mediocrity.

Then I discovered my man Joey the Vig’s (RIP) Bowl Pool. To realize how having a little skin in the outcome of a December Tuesday afternoon’s Dandy Dave’s Donut Bowl was a joyeux noel delight. Pass the chocolate creme filled with sprinkles.

I specifically recall being at a latke fest at the Professor’s house, and was the only one watching some minor bowl. Forget the name. Forget who won. Do remember that Syracuse was one of the teams, and that if they either made or missed a last second FG, I would vault into the pool’s lead.

It happened. I started screaming joyously as I sauntered toward the platter of fried potato pancakes and apple sauce. Only the Professor understood, as his standing plummeted with the result.

Others in attendance looked at me with befuddled confusion.

Others were also a smidge confused, during the lighting of the candles, when I reminded, “Dinah Shore-A lights the menorah.”

So yeah I’m grateful for all these affairs, matching teams about which I have no idea.

FYI, I don’t research a thing.

Look at the names. Look at their records. Try to recall if I have any info whatsoever stored, pause for a nanosecond and circle the “winner.”

Two years in a row, I captured the Vig’s pool, by taking less than a minute and circling all the underdogs. Using the same strategy the next go round, I finished a distant last.

Ob la di, ob la da.

So here, without further filler or ado, or any aforethought are a handful of picks in some of the lesser battles: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Assorted Early Bowls →

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: CFP Round 1

Football, Gaming

Should we have known from Week 0 that this was going to be a schizzy wackowhirl season of epical psychodramatic proportions?

I imagine.

Recall with me what happened in Dublin when Iowa State bested Kansas State in a Week Zero Battle o’ Erin. The winner of which, one sage — Guilty — predicted would make it to the CFP.

Well, that didn’t happen.

But off the field, both schools lost their coaches. One to retirement. One to Happy Valley. Or, so it is called.

But off the field in Dublin, the Too Much Guinness Effect.

K State QB Avery Johnson’s father and brother got in a fist fight while abroad.

With . . ..

. . . each other.

Steve Harvey was not around to referee said Family Feud. Richard Dawson is spinning six feet under.

Forget the unpredictable results on the field, the other than Saturday action continues to fascinate. Michigan Man Sherrone Moore was fired for cause. Then arrested that night and charged with a felony.

Diego Pavia hurled F-Bombs at the Heisman voters after finishing 2d in the voting.

Then contritely apologized.

Even though they are still searching for coach in Ann Arbor after Kalen DeBoer said, “Uh no, not interested” . . .

. . . the first round of the College Football Playdowns starts Friday. Featuring two schools that fell to underwhelming Louisville, which shall be competing in the bottom feeder Flatulence Bowl.

The teams ranked 5-8 get to play a home game, while the Top Four get to rest, but then travel distances to hallowed but neutral venues for their openers in and around New Year’s.

Reminder this is not an official NCAA national championship. It’s more an independent invitational, though we consider it a crowning. Since the “ruling tribunal”, as usual, sat on its hands. Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: CFP Round 1 →